


Passover 1996

by cly31225



Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Disabled Character, Canon Jewish Character, Dom Charles, Established Relationship, Growing Old Together, Jewish Holidays, Kneeling, Light Angst, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Naked Cuddling, Not really because they are still Magneto and Professor X and fighting each other, Old Cherik, Pesach | Passover, Sub Erik, but they also love and cherish each other and grow old together in their own way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-15 16:03:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18502327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cly31225/pseuds/cly31225
Summary: On a rainy Thursday afternoon in 1996, Charles and Erik meet in a tiny apartment in NYC to celebrate Passover.





	Passover 1996

**Author's Note:**

> cw: (very brief) food mention
> 
> Chag kasher v'sameach:)

The apartment was warm when Charles arrived. A little too warm for Erik's taste, but Charles' body easily ran cold nowadays, the age and his injury both taking their toll. Their minds reunited before they saw each other. Erik was in the bedroom, folding sheets, but stopped for a moment when he felt Charles' telepathy surround him. Charles would have been able to reach him from miles away doubtlessly, even without Cerebro, but outside of the walls of this apartment the war between humans and mutants still hadn’t quieted down and it wasn’t wise to mistake the few quiet moments they shared in here for trust and peace between these races or even between the Brotherhood and the X-Men. It felt different now than when he'd first had him in his head, strong and merciless as he'd tried to find something that would stop Erik from letting the submarine pull him down, and different to when it had happened again, more consensually this time, the third night they'd shared a bed. Back then Charles had slipped accidentally and Erik had let him. At first, they had both held their breaths, scared of each other as much as of themselves, but then Charles' mind had leaned into his, hesitantly and jittery, and Erik had known that he'd never get enough of that feeling of complete connection. They had never talked about it. Had never talked about what it meant that he still owned the helmet but relaxed so instantaneously whenever Charles' mind touched his. It was too dangerous to talk about, too dangerous to even think about, especially with Charles listening in. He could feel Charles chuckle at that from the other room, where he was taking off his coat. Hanging it on the second to last hook, like he always did. The first time they had met here, they had ended up having sex on the couch before they'd even said as much as a word. A coping mechanism, nothing more. Erik knew that. Handing over his body had never stopped being easier than doing the same with his heart.

_You've always been awfully good at that too._

Charles was in the doorway, a smile on his face, amused and longing at the same time. It hurt Erik to see how old he'd grown, how many years of his life he hadn't shared. The wrinkles around his eyes had deepened since the last time he had seen him up close and a scar right above his eyebrow served as a reminder of how easily a sharp shard of metal, flung into the wrong direction, could have made the Passover two years ago their last one. And still, when Charles reached out for him, his other hand resting on a wheel of the chair, Erik had chained him to more than three decades ago, Erik fell to his knees as if not a day had passed since the last time he had felt Charles’ forgiving touch and the love in his mind as it caressed Erik’s ever so gently. His jolts cracked in protest at the position, reminding him that he was no longer 32 with a body at the height of its agility, but he didn’t care and just leaned into Charles’ hand further, sighing softly as the other man led his head to rest against his thigh. It was bony as expected after the lack of use had reduced the muscles in it to nothing over the years. He couldn’t help but notice that even the bit of fat that had usually covered Charles’ bone was now gone.

_You haven’t been eating properly._

Charles didn’t for a second halt in his attempt to make a mess of Erik’s hair while he still had the chance and Erik by his feet.

_Neither have you._

Nothing more. No ‘You are supposed to take care of yourself. You promised.’, no ‘If you keep going like this, it’ll kill you.’. In a way, it upset Erik more than a scolding would have. To know that he had been enough of a disappointment in the past for Charles to no longer bother to enforce the rules he had made so long ago and which Erik had vowed to honor and had broken over and over again over the years. Maybe Charles had known about the kind of inner turmoil and guilt his lack of sternness would cause in Erik, or maybe he was just too immersed in the task at hand to make much of a fuss. He had always liked Erik’s curls, almost as much as Erik had despised them. They showed to the world what he was, something he had always thought of as weakness while Charles had only seen the beauty in it. It was so frustratingly typical of Charles to put happiness and indulgence over safety and necessity, a point of view so unlike Erik’s and fueled by the privilege he lived in. Straight hair, hidden emotions, and a clean appearance had kept Erik alive for almost seven decades. And still he was on his knees in front of his sworn enemy, his head on his lap, his hair tousled, his knees aching, and happier than he had been in months.

 

They had given up on songs after the second year.

The first year had been a mess from start to finish. Neither of them had come to look for peace. Instead, they had both arrived looking to get back what they had once had, for an apology and for the pain to stop. They had left the apartment before the first seder was over, fuming and with a new sort of war in their hearts, sparked by the feeling of losing something they had only just gotten back. In retrospect, Erik couldn’t say why exactly they had fought or who had been at fault, as it so often was between the two of them, even if he’d have liked to think that most of the time he indeed was in the right but simply unable to withstand Charles’ charm that urged him to believe whatever came over his lips.

The second year had been better than the first, if only marginally. They had both learned that they wouldn’t find forgiveness here and had stopped looking for it. It had made not finding it a bit more bearable. It had also made Erik more aware of the new way Charles had been looking at him. There had been pity in his eyes, pain, loss and another emotion that Erik had for a long time denied himself to identify. It had been hope. For what exactly, he didn’t know. Perhaps Charles didn’t either.

Their seders had changed after that. There really was no point in pretending the times for heartfelt laughter and songs weren’t long gone. Their children who they were supposed to tell this story to on these evenings, hadn’t spoken to either of them in a long while. Erik would visit the apartment in secret the month before Passover to clean and kasher it. He would do it all by hand, leaving his mutant powers outside the front door. If he couldn’t give HaShem the celebrations he owed Him, he could at least prove his willingness to serve Him this way, and perhaps He would understand that all that Erik had left to give was pain, and no happiness. Charles disagreed of course. He always did. He had yet to give up on finding the ‘good’ in Erik, whatever that was supposed to be. But he didn’t ask why they didn’t sing the songs anymore, those they had sung the first two times, and he didn’t ask why Erik didn’t laugh anymore or why they now read a different haggadah. In return Erik didn’t ask about the shudder that went through Charles whenever he messed up a line in the prayers they spoke or in the texts they read to each other, and he didn’t ask why Charles tried to hide the pendant from him that hung around his neck and had David’s name engraved in the backside, when he had to know that Erik had a mental map of every piece of metal in the room at all times. They both had memories too heavy to share in more than just thought.

 

They prepared dinner in silence. Too many words had fallen between them already and too many scars had been left by those words. Music played in the background, a vinyl record, Erik had gifted Charles on his 50th birthday. He hadn’t expected him to hold on to it, had felt a bit silly even to give a rich man a cheap thing he had picked up in a small corner store. But Charles, the sentimental old fool, had treasured it in a way only he would treasure something so meaningless and impractical, and the familiar notes filled the small apartment as they worked quietly, habit and Charles’ telepathy that still connected their minds rendering all spoken words meaningless in their redundancy. Even after months of separation they effortlessly moved past and around each other. For all their differences, they still knew and understood each other inside out and could tell at all moments where the other was and how to move along in perfect harmony. It was almost like a dance that way.

The flowers didn’t surprise him. Charles insisted on giving them to him every year. Erik didn’t mind them, not really. Being wooed like that was nice, even when realistically there was no need. He liked it when Charles called him pretty and when he took his hand to caress every knuckle with his lips, paying special attention to the age spots that were growing in size and number every year. After all this time it still filled him with warmth, when Charles kissed him and told him how beautiful he was and when his hands wandered over his body, not claiming, because there was no doubt who he belonged to, and not exploring, because Charles already knew every inch of his body so well he could probably reconstruct it from memory. Just appreciating, caressing, worshipping in a way someone like Erik didn’t deserve. The words, the looks, the gifts, all that Charles showered him with, they weren’t meant for someone like him, someone who was all fight and harsh edges, someone who had stopped counting the murders he had committed a long time ago. They were meant for someone younger, more beautiful, who had seen less of the world and still loved it. Someone who knew how to form crowns out of the flowers he was given.

_Silly boy._

He found Charles watching him when he looked up, momentarily halting in his task of cutting carrots for their seder meal, and smile at him with those stupidly warm eyes that always seemed to look right through him and pierce through the walls not even Charles’ telepathy ever passed. Erik found himself smiling back. Charles’ lips were a little chapped but warm and nice when he leaned over to kiss him and when he turned back to his carrots, he was still smiling quietly to himself, like a high school girl after her first kiss, and when he glanced at Charles again, secretly, because being caught doing that was just too embarrassing, he saw the same smile on Charles’ lips.

They spent their nights curled up on the narrow single bed, Erik’s cheeks blushing from more than just the wine, he’d had for the seder, and hidden against Charles’ strong chest. It was a little chilly to be naked despite the fire in the kitchen’s tiled stove, but the need to feel each other won in the end and although they woke up freezing, neither of them could honestly say they regretted it. They warmed up in the too small bathtub, slowly kissing as they washed each other, trying to put all their love in the few shared moments until they would have to return to their lives as Professor X and Magneto again. It was an attempt to do the impossible and destined to fail but that had never stopped them from trying.

 

Saying goodbye always was the hardest part. It was tempting to allow themselves another moment, another kiss, another lingering touch, but seconds added up to minutes and minutes added up to hours and at their ages, they didn’t have any of those to spare. Charles left first, taking a cab to the other side of the city, where his X-Men would pick him up. Erik watched him from one of the windows, the only one that faced the main street. Then he drew the curtain shut, stepped outside and locked the door with a wave of his hand.

He had a war to win.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not Jewish, so if you are and want to point out any errors or have found anything that hurts or offends you, please, please, please let me know! I want to learn and will do my best to improve.
> 
> For prompts or chatting visit me on Tumblr [cly-art.](https://cly-art.tumblr.com) I mostly post my fanart there but that might change depending on how well this fic is received.


End file.
